Viva La Palestine

Congratulations to the People of Palestine on the recognition of Palestine as a 'Non-Member Observer State' --- Viva La Palestine!!!

EK DIN WOH BHI AAYE GA!!

Ek Din Woh Bhi Aye Ga
Rehman Malik Motor Cycle Chalaye Ga
Phone Service Block Nahi Hogi
Jab Zardari Easy Load Kar Waye Ga
Insaaf bhi milay ga logon ko
Agar Iftikhar taqreerain nahi sirf faislay sunaye ga
Budget Main Sehat aur Taleem ki Ahemiat hogi
Jab Kiyani Retirement Plan Nahi, Peace Plan Banaaye Ga
Karachi Phir Say Roshan Hoga Dekhna
Jab Police Kay Dil say Nine Zero aur Bilawal House ka Dar Jaye Ga
Jhamoriat sab ko payari hogi
Jab Leader sirf naam say nahi kirdar ka bhi Sharif kehlaye Ga
Muharram Bhi Guzray ga Aman Say
Jab Marnay Wala Shia ya Sunni nahi Sirf Insaan Keh Laye ga
Meray Mulq kay Halaat tab Badlain Gey
Jab Imran ki Tsunami nahi balqay is Qaum Ko Ek Dosray Ka Khayaal Aye Ga
Ek Din Woh Bhi Aye Ga
Rehman Malik Motor Cycle Chalaye Ga!!!

The Ideology of Malala!

Malala is not a Bhutto, a Sharif, a Makhdoom or a Khar. She is not an heir to a political legacy. She is also not the first child to be attacked by the Taliban. Then why is she so relevant? Why the hue and cry over an attack on her? A cynical group has become active on the Social Media in Pakistan asking the question “Is Malala the only daughter of Pakistan?” and “What about showing sympathy of the many children who die because of Drone attacks?”

The attack on Malala was strongly condemned by Baan Ki Moon and even Barack Obama, whose own administration admitted to have caused 60 children casualties during Drone strikes. Just a few hours ago Madonna revealed Malala’s name stenciled over her back. So why had Malala taken the centre stage and has been turned into a symbol of resilience and courage?

Were the armed and strong Taliban really afraid of the ideals of a 14 year old girl as they were of that of Benazir Bhutto’s?

Both Malala and Benazir were condemned by the Taliban for being pro west. A friend, however, disagreed with the view that the Taliban were threatened by a girl and her books. He maintained that savages need not be scared of someone for them to kill them. It is a good enough reason for them that the other is person disagrees with their views. To add weight to his arguments he cited the recent killing of Shia Muslims in Pakistan by Taliban who being a minority do not pose a threat to the Taliban but follow a school of thought different from theirs. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps Taliban were just angry that Malala refused to sit at home and not attend school when they had occupied Malakand Divison back in 2008.

This appears a very plausible reason for me as I analyze the situation sitting in Karachi, thousands of kilometers away from Swat. But was Malala really my role model or did she really matter to the kids who live in the posh suburbs of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad and attend private westernized schools, enjoy the latest movies at the cinemas and shop for foreign brands at massive malls? The fact that half my friends admitted they haven’t even heard of Malala before this hugely publicized attack makes it easy for me to answer the questions above.

However, the schools, suburbs and malls of Karachi are not facing immediate threats from the Taliban (not yet). But the schools and neighbor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where Swat is located, are always on red alert. It is that province where the Taliban thrive and where they exhibit their influence. Malala’s courage back in 2008 when she cried out on live television “Open my School!” may not have influenced me or my friends but it certainly spelled hope for her peers. When Malala got nominated for the international peace award and was covered by all the top newspapers of the world she certainly inspired and gave courage to all those girls who go to her school, who travel in her bus and who live in the neighborhoods haunted by the Taliban. Malala even after attaining international acclaim did not take a scholarship to attend school abroad or migrate to a more developed area of Pakistan. She stayed in Swat and believed that with her will she can excel at home and that only would have reaffirmed the belief of her peers in their home city and in the educational facilities available to them.

Where kids from even the most privileged families of Pakistan aspire for a career abroad and making a life for themselves in Europe or North America thereby adding to the brain drain crisis of Pakistan, Malala belongs to that distinct class who had the opportunity to move to greener pastures but she believed in making things right at home. Malala does not belong to so called liberal class of Pakistan who cherish and miss the years when Pakistan had casinos and pubs and it fell on the infamous hippy trail of the 1970’s. Malala’s liberal ideals are not tied down to having such avenues of entertainment in her city. However, her ideals appear to advocate the right for one to get the education and exposure which will allow one the freedom and wisdom to live life their own way.

Being a daughter of an educationist it is not hard to imagine why Malala’s biggest anxiety was the threat to her education when the Taliban occupied Malakand Division. Perhaps, barring everything else, had the Taliban not forbid education for female students, Malala being just 11 would have been unconcerned as to who rules the country. However, the Taliban challenged Malala’s ideals with their extremist laws and she refused to bow down and in doing so she taught her friends and their families to do the same. She not just challenged the authority of the Taliban but their ideology as well. An ideology which does not accepts arguments, contra reasoning or even an intellectual discourse.

When Malakand was rescued by the Armed Forces in 2008-09 we all saw deserted training camps of the Taliban on television. I still remember seeing murals of heaven and beautiful women, presented as infamous 70 virgins, drawn on the walls of those training camps. It was not heard to guess what was being taught there. The Taliban were not motivating their recruits with monetary benefits. It also only made it more certain that the Taliban are not a commercial enterprise which offers jobs. Being a force born out of an ideology they operate like an institution, though a menacing one, which brainwashes its recruits and takes away their ability to reason. Ideologies are not harmed by guns and drones. Ideologies are challenged by education of and exposure to the opposite views and in this instance it is Malala’s view. Her view that education is her right and it is her biggest tool to become a strong and independent individual. Her view that education will help her understand her religion, Islam, and the rights it gives to women better and thus not accept any orthodox and extremist fatwa thrown at her by the Taliban.

And the relevance of Malala’s ideology is not just limited to countering the Taliban. Pakistan suffers from various criminal cultural traditions which have nothing to do with the Taliban. Karo Kari, Watta Satta, bartering women for clearing debts, getting women married to shrines and holy books and child marriages. All this may change is Malala’s ideology of education for every female child is adopted and promoted at a National level. It certainly does not appear to be the case right with Pakistan estimated to have close to 25,000 ghost schools.

Pakistan needs to stop living in denial and stop waiting for outrageous events like the public flogging of a woman or an assassination attempt of a 14 year old by the Taliban to realize how grave this threat it. Pakistan and its government need to endorse the idea that the Taliban were in fact scared of Malala’s ideology because perhaps that way we can give it the importance it deserves and work towards saving its future generations from all kinds of extremism whether religious or cultural. The outrage this attack has created is nearest to the one I witnessed when Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. It is interesting that when Malala expressed her desire to be a politician three years ago she cited Benazir as her inspiration. The Pakistani people need to channel this outrage in forcing the government to shift its focus to developing educational and health facilities in the country rather than spend millions of dollars in expanding its nuclear arsenal.

It would be indeed criminal on Pakistan’s part if the only people who realize the worth of Malala’s ideals are international pop stars and foreign heads of state. 

No country for Shia men!

The bus is stopped. People are pulled out. Without asking any questions armed men start filtering the crowd. Almost everyone is asked to get back inside the bus but your family is left behind. You suddenly realize it is because you look different. As everyone else around you look of Turko-Mongol decent your family and you look Indo-Aryan. In a matter of seconds you feel like you are in a foreign country amidst alien people. But your father and your mother were born and raised here in Pakistan.

Gun Shot! You are too scared to look who fell but you know it’s a kin. Your only fortune is that you won’t have to feel that agony and pain for long as the gun barrel is now pointing at you. Reverse the ethnic equation and that’s just how the Hazaras are made to feel in Balochistan. A pre-dominantly Shia ethnic group, it isn’t hard to recognize them in a crowd because of their distinct facial features. Fair skinned, pointed cheek bones with oriental eyes and nose, the Hazaras migrated to Pakistan from Afghanistan to escape the very discrimination and persecution they are suffering here.

They are being mercilessly killed not because they look different but it’s because their distinct looks gives away their religious belief. To those who got offended by the use of the phrase ‘gives away’ as if the religious belief of the Hazara is something they should be penalized for, it appears it is. Such is the horrifying state of freedom of religion for the Hazara in Balochistan and Shias in general in Nothern parts of Pakistan. 20 Shias were pulled off a bus in Mansehra and shot dead in broad daylight just for being Shia.

Quaid-e-Azam, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, was also a Shia. Before I am accused of spreading a fitna in this Land of the Pure please refer to Fatima Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan’s sworn affidavits submitted along with the former’s Application (C. M. A. No. 54 of 1948) before the High Court of Sindh. It makes me wonder if Jinnah would also be scared of living in Quetta or Mansehra if he were alive today? Would he also be dragged out of the bus and shot dead in front of his family? Would the Government also display criminal silence on his murder?

Jinnah never used a single opportunity to try and shape the Pakistan or give it a religious model based on his personal school of thought. In his first address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan he said:

“If you will work in co-operation, forgetting the past, burying the hatchet, you are bound to succeed. If you change your past and work together in a spirit that everyone of you… is first, second and last a citizen of this State with equal rights, privileges, and obligations, there will be no end to the progress you will make. …We should begin to work in that spirit and in course of time all these angularities of the majority and minority communities… Pathans, Punjabis, Shias, Sunnis and so on …will vanish.”

65 years later, the minorities are still co-operating, forgiving and burying hatchets as the majority keeps digging them back up. No, not every Sunni is picking a gun and killing a Shia but every Pakistani’s (Sunni) inaction on these atrocities is encouraging another Pakistani’s (Shia) murder. Jinnah was against the notion of a theocratic state, the very demon which we are turning into. An exorcism is not expected by the Supreme Court this time which appears more concerned with curing the ill of vulgarity on national television. Honourable Mr. Chief Justice, obscenity may corrupt us morally but this indifference of the state machinery towards the plight of the minorities is just inhumane.

The case here is not of lack of representation of the minorities. Pakistan’s all powerful President, for the past four and half years is a Shia Muslim. We do not need successful politicians like Zardari who believe in saving vote banks but brave leaders like Salman Taseer who died for the for the rights of the people he represented i.e. the people of Pakistan. Leaders who are willing to guard its people not just from the terrorists but even from the state's own manifested perversions such as the Blasphemy Laws, which is a man made law written and drafted and passed by the members of the National Assembly and not by God Almighty.

Furthermore, our mainstream media also needs to display some social responsibility. Sacrifice their ratings and discuss topics which may not exactly be the liking of the majority of the viewers. Nobody likes seeing in the mirror after all. There is a surge of dramas on tv channels where the female of male protagonist is a confused westernized youth who after having identity crisis for most part of the show becomes a born again muslim in the end. He/she starts to pray 5 times a day the apparent qualification of a good and complete muslim and the show ends. What about a show which goes beyond the ‘Jannamaz.’ Which actually shows a good muslim practicing actual Islam which teaches us that saving one human life is like saving humanity and how for a good muslim, Shias, Sunnis, Ahmadis, Ismailis, Bohris, Christians, Hindus, Sikhs, Parsis and Atheists etc. are all equal humans with equal rights to life.

Moreover, a word to our celebrated news anchors dedicate endless hours of prime time television making us sit and get sermons from the likes of Mr. Zaid Hamid who tells us how our neighboring is a living hell for the Dalits, the Sikhs of Khalistan, the Naxalites, the muslims of Gujrat and the people of Assam. Not for any religious or political beliefs but purely out of the need of sincere and honest journalism do justice to the opportunity you have and use your precious analytical minds for making us more aware of the problems of the people of Pakistan and their respective solutions. Quit living in a state of disbelief and calling this country ‘Madina-e-Sani.’

As to the people, who believe in freedom of religion, Online Petitions may get the Government to take some positive steps for the time being but this country needs an overhaul. Take your passion to the polling booths next year. Encourage your friends to not just like your ‘status update’ about the vision of a better Pakistan but actually go and vote for one on Election Day.

I dedicate this blog to the memory and vision of Jinnah, a minority and the Father of this country (using the adjective of ‘nation’ seems misplaced at this time.)

Eid Mubarak 2012!

"For many, Eid will be not an occasion of such great joy and rejoicing as in Pakistan. Those of our brethren who are minorities in Hindustan may rest assured that we shall never neglect or forget them. Our hearts go out to them, and we shall consider no effort too great to help them and secure their well-being for I recognize that it is the Muslim minority provinces in this sub-continent who were the pioneers and carried the banner aloft for the achievement of our cherished goal of Pakistan. I shall never forget their support, nor I hope the majority provinces in Pakistan will fail to appreciate that they were the pioneers in the vanguard of our historic and heroic struggle for the achievement of Pakistan, which today is an accomplished fact." - Mohammad Ali Jinnah, 18th August 1947 (First Day of Eid)

The father of the Nation, Jinnah,spared a thought for the minorities in India on Eid 1947. Taking note of today's reality let us all show consideration and become more responsible towards minorities in Pakistan on Eid 2012.

Faris Shafi - Awaam (Feat. Mooroo)

Life by Maaz Maudood.

Being positive never hurts!